


Firsts

by MsMay



Series: My DCU [6]
Category: DCU
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, The Ever Present Specter of Bruce Wayne's Dead Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 17:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10195448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMay/pseuds/MsMay
Summary: Mar'i Grayson meets her father's side of her family for the first time. It's Bruce's annual memorial for his departed parents, so the whole bat clan is there to welcome the newest addition to their family. Mar'i experiences a lot of firsts. Bruce Wayne experiences a couple too.





	

Mar’i Grayson arrives in the Wayne manor for the first time in her life, and is dazzled by the lights. Her papa has a habit of keeping the lights off when Mama’s not home. Really, he doesn’t like the dark, he just forgets. Years have taught him how to see in the dark, and Mar’i is a baby so really, she can’t complain either way. But Wayne manor is _bright!_ All the chandeliers above are bright and pretty and sparkle. Mar’i wants to play with them, but her father holds her tight.

“Oh no you don’t, you little munchkin,” her papa says. He blows a raspberry on her tummy, which throws her into a fit of giggles and distracts her for the moment.

“I see she takes after Starfire,” says an elegant boy, with bright blue eyes.

“I was really hoping her powers wouldn’t manifest until she hit puberty, but she’s been flying ever since she first learned to crawl,” Papa says. Mar’i marvels at this person, reaching out towards him. He startles at her grabby little fingers. “She wants you to hold her,” Papa says, trying to hold her back as she wriggles in his arms.

“Dick, I’m not sure-” he starts. He looks absolutely helpless when Papa puts her right into his arms.

“No, support her head Tim.” Papa maneuvers the elegant boy’s arms until Mar’i is comfortable, which is good. She’s a finicky baby, she was about five seconds away from crying up a storm. Instead she reaches up for his face, and feels along it’s elegant places. Mar’i likes his face. It’s not round and warm and dark like Mama’s, but the smooth whiteness of his skin is still pretty. His eyes are heavy though. She pokes at the purple bit underneath. Her Papa has those sometimes. “Aw look at that, she loves her Uncle Tim.”   

Uncle Tim does something funny with his mouth, a wobbly little spurt, like he doesn’t understand how this is even happening.

“I want to hold her!” says a bright young girl, exploding in a surprise right next to Mar’i’s head. Mar’i startles, and starts to tear up.

“Oh god, oh god, Dick she’s going to cry what do I do?” Uncle Tim asks. His face contorts, and that doesn’t help Mar’i. Then a pair of big hands scoop her up out of Tim’s arms, and she’s met with a new, rougher looking face. The set of his jaw is hard, but his eyes are bright with mirth.

“Aw, c’mon you little troglodyte, don’t go cryin’ on us now,” he says in that pleasant and soothing baby voice that is really more babble than words. Mar’i misses something, a look between the adults. It makes this new man hum, and the pleasant rumble of his voice soothes Mar’i a little. “Roy has Lian, remember?” he says after a bit. “Seems like everyone in the gang has a kid.”

“Jason-” her Papa starts.

“Everyone to the table, please,” says a grey man in a dapper black suit. His hair is grey, his mustache is grey, Mar’i is fairly certain his eyes are grey, but they twinkle with a myriad of light that makes Mar’i giggle. Uncle Jason hands Mar’i back to her father, and then runs off to bicker with the bright young girl over whose spot is whose.

“Right this way Mistress,” says the gray man, taking her tiny hand and leading her and her Papa to a table. Mar’i is delighted by this man’s interest in her, and claps her hands together, even though he’s still holding her hand. “Quite the strong grip she has.”

“I know! She’s already quite the little climber, you should see her at home, Alfred.”

“With you for a father Master Dick, I would expect nothing less,” Alfred says with indulgent fondness.

“Where’s Bruce?” A woman with bright red hair, calls. One day, Mar'i will learn that this is her Great-Aunt Kate. Mar’i hears the man beside her mutter under his breath.

“Yes, where _is_ Master Bruce, I do wonder.” But he straightens up a moment later, and addresses Uncle Jason.

“He’ll be here in a moment. You know how this day pains him. In the meantime, feel free to sit down, and begin your meal.”

The table fills with strange bright people, so many faces that Mar’i has never seen before. Her home is very quiet, except for when Mama and Papa’s friends visit. Even then, her friends are not loud like this. Within seconds of their seating the table is uproarious. Uncle Jason picks up a knife and starts sword fighting Uncle Tim for first dibs on the potatoes. One girl sits with her knees beneath her, on top of a chair.

“Cassandra-” someone begins, but they’re cut off by someone else’s shouting. Mar’i cannot keep focus on any one point for very long. Her father more than a little thankful that she’s too distracted to resist the baby mush he’s feeding her. Then a door opens up, and everyone is quiet while a large man, with a rough square face slowly stalks in and takes a seat at the head of the table. He reminds Mar’i of her papa, and of Uncle Jason, and of Uncle Tim too.  

“Thank you all for waiting,” he says, glaring at others. No one has any food on their plate except for Mar’i but he doesn’t really seem to notice that. “I would like to thank you all for being here. I know that none of you came into this family while my parents were alive, but it means a lot to me that you are here to remember them with me. And I would-”

Mar’i notices that her father has stopped feeding her and is instead, just holding the spoon out. She swats it out of his hand, and then squeals in delight. Mar’i is _never_ faster than her father. But this is the first of a very few victories she will truly win over him in the coming years.

“Aw, Mar’i, jeez,” her papa says. He wipes at his shirt where the apple sauce spilled and gives her a stern look. Mar’i is not phased, she is still too delighted by the spoon-swiping caper to pay him any mind.

“Dick,” the old man says. Mar’i’s attention is drawn to him easily. He is new, and he talks in a funny gravelly voice that Mar’i thinks is pleasant.

“Oh right, um, this is Mar’i. Here. . .” Her papa picks her up out of her high chair and they walk together over to this grumpy old man. “Mar’i, this is grandfather Bruce. Say hi, okay?”

Mar’i is already fascinated with this man’s face. There’s a scraggly toughness to him, accented by the fact that he clearly hasn’t shaved in a few days. Mar’i wiggles her hands at him.

“Bruce, she wants you to hold her,” Papa says. Her grandfather makes a gruff noise of assent. He carefully pillows her head in his huge hands. The room picks up noise again, in a gentle swelling crescendo. like a wave that has no break. There is just whispers, then speaking, then shouting, then laughter. With all of the exciting noise Mar’i starts to fidget and clap her hands, although she cannot see what’s happening. Bruce holds her in a firm grasp, not too hard. He is very careful, so careful.

Mar’i does not know what Bruce sees as he looks at her. She only knows what she sees for herself. Her grandfather looks down at her, and then there is something distant to his gaze has he looks across the table.

She doesn’t know that as he looks at her, he sees the whole of his family jumping and yelling behind her tiny, wiggling form. They fill Wayne manor. Bruce has never thought about that, never thought about how these people actually _fill_ the immutable, yawning mass of his family home. Even as a child there was not sound, and color, and life like this. Mar’i Grayson makes a gurgling noise, and claps her hands. She does not know that for the first time in his life Bruce Wayne does not wish he had been the one to die on that lonely night so long ago. He does not wish for a life where his parents had not been killed. Looking down at this baby, living proof that he had raised a family, a family who could raise a family of their own, he realizes that he would not trade his life for anything.

“Bruce?” Papa asks, and when Bruce doesn’t respond, Papa says a little quieter, “Dad?”

“Alfred,” Bruce whispers, quiet as Mar’i grabs her grandfather’s shaking finger. It takes her whole fist to get ahold of his finger, and even then her little hand isn’t quite big enough. “Alfred, look, I have a granddaughter.”

“Indeed you do, Master Bruce,” and he means to be a little snarky, but he chokes up halfway through.  

“I have a granddaughter. . .”

Mar’i won’t remember how she reached up and papped the edge of his jaw, like she was trying to brush away the one tear that rolled down. She won’t remember how her grandfather seemed to snap to himself, looking down at her in a sudden almost-panic.

“I uh, here, here’s your daughter,” he says, putting her back in Papa’s arms. “She is very small,” he says.

Mar’i won’t remember how her father laughed, and kissed her forehead when she made little unhappy noises. “Aw look, she misses you already.” She won’t remember that she tried to float back into her grandfather’s hands.

But she will grow up with that story. Uncle Jason will tell her that Uncle Tim nearly cried when he had to hold her, and Uncle Tim will insist that no, he most certainly did not. He was very good at holding her. They’ll joke about how her newly-adopted Aunt Cassandra just about stole her after dinner. It took everyone else an hour to realize that Cass had taken Mar’i to the bat-cave to teach her baby martial arts. Oh and then there’ll be the story of how Mar’i floated off Aunt Babs’ lap and into a chandelier.

And in the quiet moments, when her father whispers about how _proud,_ her grandfather looked, how bright his eyes were with almost-tears, when he held his first grand-child, Mar’i will swear she can remember. There was the feel of his prickles beneath her soft, chubby hand, the way his saw shifted as she spoke words she was too young to understand. She can’t quite remember his eyes, but she remembers feeling distressed, and necessary all at once. She will never be quite sure if it is her first memory, or if she is only imagining it, but it will be precious none the less.


End file.
